Man learns mobile recording, records suicide note and ends his life

A 50-year-old man allegedly ended his life by hanging himself and purportedly filmed the act on his mobile phone along with a suicide note recorded in his voice, police said Sunday. The deceased, Babu Sheikh, blamed his daughter-in-law, with whom he had a tiff, and her family for the extreme step, they said.

Sheikh lived with his family at Bhaskar Nagar in Ambernath township of Thane district. His son got married last month. However, there used to be frequent quarrels between the family and the daughter-in-law. On one occasion, there was a tiff between Sheikh and the daughter-in-law who later left the house and went to stay with her parents.

On the night of December 22, Sheikh learnt from his younger son, how to record a video on mobile phone and later went to sleep in his room in the adjacent apartment. The next morning, when Sheikh’s family members went to wake him up, there was no response and they broke open the door and found him hanging from the ceiling, police said.

As the deceased’s son recalled his father having asked him about recording on a handset, he checked his phone and found a purported video of his alleged suicide, which he apparently made by keeping the phone on auto recording mode. A voice recording was also found in the phone in which Sheikh alleged that his daughter-in-law and her father and brother defamed him and and doubted his character and due to this he was ending his life, police said.

The Ambernath police, based on a complaint by Sheikh’s younger son, registered an offence yesterday under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) against the daughter-in-law, her father and brother, they said. No arrest has been made so far.